Coruscant Underworld
by vandalvagabond
Summary: I've heard of being misplaced, but this is kind of ... wild. I, someone meant to go Earth Bet, was instead tossed onto Coruscant. If I was overpowered before, then I am a true Mover and Shaker in this galaxy.
1. Chapter 1

[There's been an error.]

"What?"

[There's been an error in your transference.]

"What kind of error? Did I not make it to Brockton Bay?" Moments ago, I, a random and very average civilian, had signed a contract with a cosmic/eldritch being. The agreement was that I would work as its servant on Earth Bet until the end of the Golden Morning, where upon I will be freed from the contract and then allowed to keep the powers I gained.

Said agreement was made with the service of another cosmic/eldritch being whose primary concern was creating, managing, and upholding contracts.

Hearing that there was "error in the transference" could mean a lot of things, but the central focus of my mind was on "oh shit, I'm not getting powers?"

[Destination has been altered. Contract has been nulled.]

"What?!"

I'm getting sent elsewhere but the destination was different?

[Power augmentation remains. Contract canceled due to inability on Contractor's part to fulfill the initial clause of the contract. Have a good day in your new world.]

And then zap, I was somewhere I knew nothing about (probably) in a body I knew nothing about (very likely) with the powers to make worlds tremble (very likely). I knew the powers I asked for, so it was a simple matter of remembering them and finding one to test.

I held up an arm and hand (human) and then willed it to turn into something that would leave those knowledgeable about such things horrified: Grey Goo.

With a blur, my entire forearm from the elbow down and my hands all turned into a silvery gooey substance.

I laughed.

* * *

It wasn't that hard for me to find out who I was. There was a nearly empty wallet containing just the ID of myself.

I was "Armidan Paryti," a Coruscant born 10 year old orphan human, and I knew everything he did.

The orphanage I was staying at was in the middle layer of Coruscant, no more than a few layers above the Coruscant underworld. There were forty children currently staying here, and the matron was a scraggly old Bothan being helped by his extended family.

I was on Coruscant.

I was in Star Wars.

Oh god, I was in Star Wars?

Of all -!

… Deep breath.

Alright, some miscellaneous facts. The year was 2,540 ATC. From what little I knew about Star Wars, ATC referred to the Treaty of Coruscant, which was basically the Sith Empire fucking over the Galactic Republic.

On that note, 2,540 ATC was roughly thirteen years before the Republic Dark Age, which was the time when the Galactic Republic could only support the Core Worlds due to the New Sith Wars. It was something a bit far ahead in the future, and I would take care of it eventually.

The next fact for me to be concerned about was the state of the orphanage.

The patron couldn't keep the orphanage up due to the massive costs and the fact that there were more than two local gangs seeking to control the flow of children for their nefarious purposes. Rather than allow his orphanage to be a hub of children kidnapping, the patron intended to close it down.

I would have to decide what I was going to do.

Before that, I was going to work on the one power among all of my powers that would surpass every other power in time. I searched the room for the item that the former owner of this body kept hidden from the sight of other children and the patron. I found it hidden behind a loose panel in the wall by the foot of the cot. I pulled the panel off gently and pulled the item out.

I inspected the simple if primitive Duranium knife.

To be precise, it was a broken shard of a Duranium with synthweave wrapped around the duller and shorter part of the shard.

It was, however, perfect for what I wanted to do.

I called upon Dauntless. It was an ability held by a hero called Dauntless which allowed me to "boost" an item once a day and I could continue to boost the item. Over time, the empowered items would gain supernatural abilities or effects of their own, growing stronger with each empowerment.

And I could not help but utter the words that were quite iconical for an action like this.

"Boost," I spoke with glee, and the Duranium shiv glowed in response. "Oh… baby."

* * *

It was morning in Coruscant underground. What did that mean? It meant that it was six hours away from the busiest time of the day. Unfortunately for the underground, this meant that the morning down here meant it was night on the surface because it was during the night when the wealthier surface dwellers came down to the underground to find their pieces of sin.

The orphans of Patron Kigrujik's Orphanage gathered in the cafeteria, where patron and his eldest son went around serving protein gruels.

I looked around, trying to see if this was the place that I wanted to be.

The other children seemed happy, at least, even as they ate the horrifyingly bland gruel placed in front of them.

But it was the faces of the patron and his son that drew my interest. So as they left the cafeteria to discuss something, I quickly finished my HORRIFYINGLY BLAND gruel in one-go,and then sneaked after them. I moved through the steel grey and sometimes marine blue halls with mismatching panels of metal and concrete, trying my best to not make a sound.

"... make this month's payment, but after this month, I'm not sure."

I stopped just behind a corner.

"Dad, why don't you just let us help you?"

"I'm not dragging the rest of the family into this," the old patron grunted. "You know what's gonna happen if I do. You lot just stay on the surface."

"You don't have to do this. You can just-."

"I do have to do this."

"... If you say so. But what are you going to do about the next month?"

"I guess I can cut off the heating system. We're close to the vents from lower levels so it won't be cold."

"And the month after that?"

"... I guess I can sell the house-"

"Dad!"

"What else do you expect me to do? I live alone in that big ass shithole."

"It's where I grew up! It's where the rest of the family grew up!"

"And there's no one in it except me ever since your mother died. You can't expect me to just keep it."

"Sorry."

"... It's time for you to go to work. Thanks for coming by again, Jue."

"It's not a problem."

I scrambled out of there and entered my room.

As I just learned, the situation for the orphanage was dire but not too dire. I still had at least two months before the patron had to take drastic personal measures to pay for the upkeep. I didn't hear any additional talks about local gangsters, but the tension was still there.

Did I want to stay here, though? This was the big question. If I stayed here, then I had a stable place for food, water, and shelter, no matter how low-grade all of those were. If I left, then while I might have the freedom, I would also be far more vulnerable than I am right now. Yes, I could use my powers freely to get what I wanted, but it was always that starting phase that did capes in on Earth Bet. Why would it be any different here?

In fact, I wagered that in this pre-New Sith War Republic era, there was bound to be Sith and their spies rummaging around the Coruscant underworld.

… No, I had to stay out of sight at least I could make myself some minions with my powers. Then I will need to take a chunk of the Coruscant underworld as mine, no matter how small it might turn out to be.

Speaking of my powers, I was in possession of seven Twin powers and one Wildcard power.

**Panacea.**

**Upgraded Blasto.**

**Dauntless.**

**Strider.**

**Snag.**

**Squealer.**

**Hero.**

**Flood.**

**Dauntless** was a slow equipment power-up while **Blasto**, **Squealer**, and **Hero** were all Tinkers. **Snag** was also a Tinker power but had other powers like emotional munition. **Flood** was a Breaker/Changer power that made me into a Grey Goo, but this left me vulnerable to electromagnetic pulses. **Panacea** was a Striker/Tinker/Thinker that allowed me to manipulate biology freely. **Strider** allowed me to move wherever with whomever.

Now, how was I going to go about this…

* * *

Being an orphan, I didn't have a lot of things to work with to do my planning. It wasn't like paper was a thing on Coruscant and as advanced as the entirety of Coruscant was, an electronic was still expensive for a poor orphan. As such, all of the planning was done in my head.

It wasn't great for remembering but at least it would be a secret no one could extract from me.

Unless they are a Jedi or Sith, but fuck them both. I can teleport away from them, no biggie.

The plan was thus.

During the "day" when orphans were expected to be out and about, I would go far from the orphanage using the underworld trams, use Grey Goo to devour anything from trash to people (if they try to fuck with me), and I would come back to the orphanage before "night." Once safe inside the confines of the orphanage and my room (apparently, due to unspecified reasons I had a room to myself), I would convert the extra nanite into biomass, use the existing biomass to generate new biomass through Blasto's upgraded power, and I would start to make gears for myself.

And thus, I found myself outside the orphanage. Like the rest of the Coruscant underworld, it was underground and thus devoid of natural light. Everything was lit with artificial light, and this created a lot of dimly lit spaces.

It was, essentially, a Grey Goo's perfect hunting ground.

And hunt, I shall.

But first, I didn't want to reveal my location so early to any of the major players, which included the Jedi Temple that was very close to me, and so I had to move away.

Now, time to head over to the tram.

* * *

I ended up taking an elevator instead.

* * *

I was on Level 1402, some twenty levels below where my orphanage was. Compared to there, this place was certainly dimmer, dirtier, and dustier. Right outside the small elevator that I used, which required me to pay 1 credit, were hookers.

Their bright and lusty eyes quickly grew dim and disinterested the moment I, a small child, stepped out of the elevator. I ignored them and moved deeper into the underworld level. I intentionally walked about an hour before I found a dark alley with no camera or watchers.

Perfect.

I stepped into it… and immediately found myself being accosted by a mugger.

The mugger, some humanoid blue skinned reptilian species, jumped out of a door, hissed at me with a gun pointed at my head, and gestured with his free hand.

"All of your ch-."

I moved before he could. My body turned into a goop of nanite on the spot and rushed him. He screamed very briefly before I was traveling down his throat and digesting him on the spot. His species' version of the vocal cord was the first to go, the brain, and then everything else. It took me no more than four minutes to do so. Finally, I broke down his gun, clothes, and other possessions.

Because honestly? With my tinker powers alone, I could make better shit than an outdated blaster pistol.

Then I retook a humanoid shape, but this time, I tried to change my height and appearance. I didn't check it; I just moved on. As I moved through the alley, I picked up trash, converted it to more nanites, and repeated this. If anyone decided to accost me, then they joined the ranks of the dead.

By the time I was at the other open end of the alley, I gained sixty kilograms in weight.

That was … already kind of a lot. Actually, if I gained even half that, I don't think I could use elevators or even go back to the orphanage without issue.

"I mean," I thought out loud to myself as I looked around. "This place ain't bad." It was an out of the way level that wasn't a center of crime like 1313 or famous. Or at least, this particular level in this particular area wasn't.

Which meant that it would serve PERFECTLY as a hideout, safeout, or whatever I wanted to make of it. There were also plenty of buildings in this area of this level so…

I grinned.

"I might not have to go back home at all today," I said with a drawl to myself before turning to look for a potential hideout and workshop.

The tinker in me was gushing with glee.


	2. Chapter 2

Finding a place to hideout was easier said than done.

Yes, Coruscant was a big place with a lot of nooks and crannies. The planetary government of Coruscant refused to do a census because they knew that it would be both a bloody and ultimately a useless endeavor. No one knew how many people actually lived on Coruscant.

So when I set out to find a hideout for myself even in this relatively less populated area of the level in Coruscant underworld, I was met with abandoned-looking buildings occupied, one way or another.

If it wasn't their legal owners or renters, then it was squatters. If it wasn't squatters, then it was drug dens. If it wasn't those, then it was illegal prostitution. And if there weren't any people, then it was occupied by animals and mutants of various sizes, shapes, and temperaments.

As my goop of nanite selves, I swarmed three dog-like things with spikes on their backs. I latched onto their throats and their mouths, devouring them like a fantasy slime. Their legs twitched as I started on their central nervous system, effectively lobotomizing them from the get-go. I found out that I liked my prey still and quiet. I spent less energy digesting them when they did that, so I always went after their brain first.

Nomming on the bodies of these creatures, I wondered if I could even make money as a pest controller or something.

Someone had to want these things gone and were willing to pay for it, right?

I looked around this particular floor of the abandoned building. Unlike the seven other buildings I've checked so far, this one was actually abandoned because the mutant dog-like things were dangerous carnivores that actually did kill and eat people. This building, and the street surrounding it, was more or less avoided but if I went in and out of it regularly, that would change. It was too out in the open.

Onto the next place.

* * *

I felt fat.

Considering that I was now clocking in at 143 kilograms, I certainly was heavy. I was still the same size as before; I just had all 143 kilograms worth of nanites just packed densely throughout my body, especially the chest and abdominal cavities. I was still flesh and blood when I wasn't a nanite slime.

The creaking of the metal plates that made up the ground also attested to this fact, something that drew attention towards from passersby.

Creak creak creak creak

Yes, this was going to be a problem.

I quickly made my way into an alley-.

Suddenly, there was a gun pointed at my face. "Your chit or your life."

I had this sense of deja vu going through me right now. Was this just the normal kind of greeting in this area?

I switched back into my nanite slime form, but this mugger was faster than the last mugger. He fired three shots, and I jerked back in shock as I felt 3 kilograms worth of nanites just burn away from the blaster fires.

Suddenly, I found myself angry and I jumped at the mugger with a screech.

She screeched, too, in fear before I devoured her from the inside out.

… Now, I was 180 kilograms. Great.

I really needed a hideout soon, because at the rate I'm going, I was going to end up bloated with so much mass and gain too much density to walk around. This was the bad part about Flood. It could eat and devour anything to gain more of itself but it lacked any of the usual sophistication that came with electronics. No hacking, no accessing internet, no anything complex and useful. At least, nothing could be done until I went into the depths of the nanite swarm and reprogrammed it.

…

'Okay, where am I?'

I looked around. The billboards and signs in the active streets and alleys were telling me that it was still the same level as I had stopped off from the elevator, but I think I'm like four city blocks, or a kilometer, from the elevator shaft I took to get down here.

'How long have I been here?' Unfortunately, there were no clocks around. 'Guess I am going to steal some from local losers.'

I went hunting again.

I eventually found one, though it took a while!

"Fuck."

I ignored the body of a gangster being digested by my Grey Goo left arm while I held the very simple yet network connected palm-sized personal datapad I nicked from this particular dead gangster.

And the clock on this thing was telling me that I've been out for twelve hours.

I did want to go back. The patron would be worried, and being lectured didn't sound great.

The orphanage was still home.

Unfortunately, I was now 244 kilograms and that's after I ignored half of the kills I've made, sentient or animal.

"Fuck it," I said as I looked around the building I was in. Compared to the previous abandoned-building-turned-spiked-dog-thing's-nest location, this place was further out of the way, surrounded more by alleys than streets, and buildings around this building were abandoned.

I suspected it was because of the gang I just slaughtered to the last man just now.

It was good enough for now.

"Release." It was a simple command, but one that I didn't realize the full implications of before I started to retch. The nanites converted themselves to organic compounds, and shoved themselves through the linings of the esophagus while triggering my body to heave.

Moldy, solid, and slightly wet substance began to pour out of my mouth and I collapsed onto the floor as I felt 219 kilograms of nanite-turned-biomass pour out by an unending stream.

"Mmmmmm!"

By the time it was done ten minutes later, I was tired.

Expelling over two hundred kilos in one sitting will do that to you.

That said…

I touched the biomass and willed it to life.

Kind of. Biomass doesn't rearrange instantaneously.


	3. Chapter 3

I came back by the "midnight" of the Coruscant underworld, which was the morning on the surface level. As I walked in silently, I saw the orphanage patron sitting in the lounge. I winced as he opened his eyes and those eyes landed on me.

"Armidan. You are late."

"I … am."

"Are you hungry?"

I shook my head.

"What have you been doing?"

"Nothing much. Just exploring a few levels down."

The patron frowned. "You should know better than to do that, Armidan," he grunted. "You have not been getting involved with gangs?"

I shook my head. "Haven't even seen one. I was just down at 1402."

He seemed to ponder regarding the Coruscant underworld level I just told him. "1402 is … a quiet place."

I nodded. "It was quiet, though the prostitutes by the elevator was not happy to see me."

Patron snorted. "Go to sleep, and I'll have you know that I won't tolerate an adventure like this again."

"Yes, sir."

* * *

I went out again, but I told the aging patron that I might be gone for a long time. He glared at me and straight-up told me that if I was found to have ever done anything "wrong," then he would kick me out of the orphanage. I agreed and went.

Unfortunately, I already knew that I would be kicked out. Murder was wrong, after all. That and the fact that I didn't want whatever I did to be traced back to the orphanage. Though it was the memory of Alan who dominated this body now, I still had some memories - good memories - of this place.

It would be … a shame for anyone to give the orphanage a hard time because of me.

Instead, I focused on what I would do.

First, I headed back down to level 1402.

Two, I went back to the hidey hole I found.

Three, I began to create.

I relied heavily on Flood to provide the methods and the materials while Blasto's power to create more biomass than there was and also direct the process of creating my first minions. At the same time, I was using Panacea's power to direct the creation process towards where I want it to go.

What came out of the biomass was something familiar.

I knew for a fact that I couldn't create something too striking. It would lead to attention that I could not handle right now. Even with Flood to keep me alive and Strider to keep me safe by teleporting away, any kind of serious attention that Coruscant could provide would be too much for me.

Yes, I can teleport away, but Strider had a serious weakness that Worm canon never talked about; he could only teleport to places where he'd been to before. This included Strider's line of sight. This was on top of being a strictly planet-bound teleportation.

On top of what I did with the CYOA, which brought me here…

Yes, I was going for stealth this time, and what was better for stealth than things that didn't look out of place?

And so, I smiled at my first minions as they stepped out of the biomass. Walking on four legs and shaped just like the first mutated dog-like creatures I ran into, they were sleek green fur coated creatures adapted to an urban operation.

"Hello, xenines," I said, mixing the word xenomorph and canine, and the reason for such a name made itself plain for anyone to see when one of the xenines opened its mouth to whine happily and showed the second mouth inside of the bigger mouth.

What made xenines also unique was that they lacked a digestive system like most animals and people. Humans, for example, were chemoheterotrophs, meaning they gained energy and carbon from what they ate.

My xenines were photoelectroheteromorphs. They could charge themselves from both electromagnetic light on and above the visible spectrum and on electricity. Of course, too much electricity would fry them but they could. As such, their metabolism was geared towards crushing any organic compound into harmless smaller compounds first before absorption.

How harmless?

Prions wouldn't harm my babies.

Too much bio-lingo.

I hummed, breaking myself off from introspection of how beautiful and unique my minions were, and stood up.

"Go find me more biomass. Hunt only those separated from others but touch no young ones."

I watched them go and cackled.

'The best part about my minions? They can understand complex orders.'

While the xenines were out there hunting, I set about using the rest of the biomass to make myself some creature comforts.

I wasn't going back to the orphanage, after all.

* * *

It was really shocking to see my xenines dragging bodies in, and I had to quickly make a new minion that looked like a humanoid and cleaned up the blood. The result was "Janitor," a bipedal cleaning minion that used its own secretion to melt down and dilute wastes and blood. I gave it some clothes and put it to work. With that secured, I went on to work on the hideout itself.

Over the course of the next few weeks, I would make the abandoned building my own little haven. I made beds, tables, blankets, specimen chambers, xenine spawning pool, and biomass melting pool. I even attempted to use Hero's power wavelength Tinkering to try to make a zero-point module, but that turned out to be a failure.

I upgraded my shiv a lot. It reminded me a lot of a lightsaber now because it caused electrical shock and had a blade that was no longer the size of my finger but the length of my arm. It also glowed yellow faintly in the dark.

I also managed to get my hands on a blaster and upgraded that. After ten upgrades, the blaster grew longer and was able to fire plasma that could penetrate through thin armor. The last time I tested this upgraded blaster, it penetrated through three millimeters of ferrocarbon plating (or steel as I would have called it).

With the victims being delivered to me, I was able to grow usable mass by half, which is 50% more than I had more than before.

Eventually though, the calm phase of growth came to an end when the underlevel 1402 began to notice that there was a noticeable amount of people missing, far more than what the usual level of gang activity would have caused. People were getting afraid and there were less and less victims being delivered.

What's worse, the security cameras finally caught sight of my xenines and their pictures were all over the news.

My time was running short.

* * *

My time was running short.

'That said,' I thought to myself as I wore a big coat over myself and walked along Coruscant's underlevel 1380, heading towards the Patron's Orphanage. 'I have some time before I have to leave.'

It was three months before the end of 2,540 ATC, which meant that it was Janna's birthday.

Janna was one of Armidan's orphanage mates, and she was one of the nicer kids there. Armidan had a lot of nice memories with her, and because he did and I possessed his body, I have good memories of her.

Before I left Coruscant, I wanted to leave her a gift one last time.

Apparently, I had the same birthday as her, and we were close enough that we would exchange birthday gifts.

I wanted that. Something warm and pure. Just … one last time.

The patron was out on the steps when he saw me. His eyes widened, recognizing me despite the heavy coat and hood over my head.

"You…"

I smiled weakly.

"Hi."

My smile, however, fell quickly after when I noticed that the patron had bruises along his arm and a black eye.

"Please tell me you weren't involved with gangs."

My smile was back, though soft and wary. Even hurt as he was, was he trying to care about me?

…

"I haven't, honest!" I said, waving my hands in front of me. I paused, letting my arms drop back down as well as my smile. "It was the gangs that did this to you?" It was a statement, not a question.

The old patron grunted. "The little punks thought I'd cave in after they hit me."

"I see." I reached into the coat and pulled out two boxes. I handed them both to him, and he took them gently. "The pink one's for Janna. The other's for you. Goodbye."

Then I walked away, ignoring the patron calling my name.

I guess I didn't have time to meet with Janna.

But I certainly could rid this underlevel of some of its gangsters.


	4. Chapter 4

The first thing I did after returning to underlevel 1402 and then my hideout was to design a minion that would give me some advantages. In a galaxy with laser weaponry, personal shields, and magic space wizards, I needed things to give more advantage.

As great as Dauntless was and how much Panacea could fuck up the world, the former needed a lot of time to ramp up and the latter would make me known as a plague carrier, which was probably not a good thing.

On top of that, I was on a limited time window. I didn't know how long the gangs harassing the orphanage would wait before their patience ran out and they killed the patron. This was also Star Wars, so if the gangsters were particularly savvy with their transportation, making slaves out of children wasn't out of the option. In fact, Janna was a twi'lek, and twi'lek slaves, especially malleable and moldable twi'lek child ready to be "trained" to be someone's pleasure doll, were pricey.

In conclusion, I needed something I could make within the next day in great enough quantities that would give me an advantage over the disorganized yet entrenched gangsters wielding energy weapons and hovermobiles.

… I supposed that to aim and drive, you needed to see where you were going.

* * *

When I got to work, it was with a gutso I didn't have before but there was also a tiny bit of desperation. My mind kept on playing back to the cruel reality of the Star Wars galaxy and the memory of the patron's bruised face. The black eye was more pronounced in my memory than it should be, but that's because I had faulty memory. An attack on the patron was shocking as it was saddening, and my memory was emphasizing itself through those emotions, making itself more vivid.

Biologically speaking, it was a way to remember both good and bad moments. Emotions tied to memories emphasized and kept the memory alive far longer and more vividly. I thought I had to strike fast and hard. That I was right in not giving my enemies time to react.

For me, this had the effect of pushing me complete my minions faster. Instead of choosing a design that was less horrifying, I chose a design that was easier to make but also far more horrifying to look at.

There were also little details. I believed that I wanted needed a lot of minions to fight the two gangs, because that's what I remembered about the orphanage's situation with the local criminals. Hearing that it was two whole gangs for a whole area of the underlevel made me think that I would go up against a lot of them. So I also altered the minion production in the xenine spawning pool. I changed it so that the spawning pool would produce xenines at a faster rate, but it also altered their psychology, as much of a psychology that beasts of war could have, and "reverted" their template to an older model.

By older model, my power decided that it would be better to revert my xenines to the data I acquired by eating the mutant dogs that I originally killed to get ahold of the then-abandoned building. I didn't know - because I killed the mutant dogs too fast - but they were sadistic fuckers, laughing like hyenas and hunting prey until they exhausted themselves in fear (or if the mutant dogs felt that their hunger was stronger than their need for entertainment).

So when I got ready two days after meeting the orphanage patron, I got ready with mist-spewing fumers and altered xenines, supersonic crystalline shit struck the jet engine.

It went downhill faster than the board of directors blaming the CEO for their decisions, it went FUBAR with the fury of God burning Sodom, and it triggered everything that I didn't want with the same intensity of nuclear launch being detected by all races in the Koprulu Sector.

My instruction had been "kill the gangsters wearing this and that symbol."

The xenines took the instructions and twisted it into "mercilessly torture and hunt down the bastards that pissed off the Creator. Anyone else that associates with those wearing those symbols are also targets."

And guess what?

The Jedi and police trying to help the "victims" fell underneath that new twisted instruction.

Fuck my life.

* * *

I stared at Underlevel 1380. For the past five hours, my two dozen fumers worked their organs, spewing out thick mist. No one gave shit about the underlevels, especially an underlevel without the public interest like 1380, so no one cared if there was a little mist.

Mist was a natural occurrence in the underlevels, but the mist I was making with the fumers would make seeing five meters in front of anyone a hard task.

Finally, as the mist reached the peak density, I looked to the hundreds of xenines packed in the building with me.

"Go."

Like a swarm of rats, the xenines rushed out without making a single shriek that they were prone to do.

Maybe it had to do with their instruction.

I too then walked out of the building, flanked by a trio of xenines that I specifically instructed to stay near me.

We moved through the streets, heading towards the pre-marked hideouts of the gangsters.

But there were several gangsters out in the street, smoking in alleys or in front of their hideouts.

Too bad for them.

My xenines rushed them, and the only noise they made was the rush of animal paws scratching the metallic pavements of the underlevel.

"Wha-?"

"FUCK! ANIMALS!"

"GAAAHHH!"

"There's fucking dogs everywhere!"

"Run for it! Get inside!"

"HELP ME! H-!"

I listened to it all emotionlessly. I didn't care about them beyond wanting them gone. So what if they suffered? They struck the orphanage patriarch. They scared the orphans.

I just wanted them gone.

I walked through the streets, my Dauntless-boosted blaster and shiv in the right and left hand respectively. I also didn't want any of the gangsters from leaving this place. I wanted them all dead.

I stepped into a small trickle of blood and ignored it.

I saw a terrified Falleen gangster and shot him with the blaster. The empowered blaster fired a single bolt of plasma, but upon the bolt of plasma striking the running gangster, it erupted into an explosion, tossing the gangster into the wall. The Falleen slumped where he fell to the floor with a blackened and carved head and neck.

Lowering my blaster, I ignored the xenines guarding me rushing towards the surely dead body and ripped away the flesh to consume them.

Then I saw plasma bolts in the distance and the sounds of some of my xenines dying. Without me verbally coordinating them, xenines from all over who were occupied rushed towards the location of the blaster fire.

Screams rung out as whoever was shooting the plasma bolts found themselves buried under dozens of ripping and tearing xenines.

It took less than an hour, in the end, but all gangsters on underlevel 1380 met similar fates, and I retreated to 1402.

What I didn't know was that my xenines had killed more than just the gangsters but also their families, their kids, and their friends. What friend wouldn't try to fight against the wild animals killing their friend? What family wouldn't raise a hand?

And so, they were killed and eaten.

What should have been an operation with maybe two hundred casualties was a slaughter of thousands.

It was correct to say that I left the mist of 1380 after culling a fifth of the population. It wasn't all of the local 1380 underlevel, but it was still roughly four square kilometers of land.

I left knowing what kind of a shitfest I brought upon myself.


	5. Chapter 5

I only found out about the massacre I unknowingly committed days later when people's curiosity won over their fear of the mist and the screams within, which was roughly half a week later. The fact that the mist dissipated a lot by that point was also something that bolster their courage.

Yes, apparently, my fumers were capable of creating mist that lasted for days instead of hours. It probably had to do with the way the ventilation and artificial atmosphere interacted with it. It also probably didn't help that the aboveworlders didn't give us underlevelers shit, thinking we were all criminal scum and didn't even waste energy turning on the ventilation.

… Unfortunately, there were troublesome aboveworlders that did give a shit about a massacre.

The Jedi Order.

The fucking Jedis.

Yeah, they sent a dozen knights and a master to look for me because apparently, someone managed to take a picture of me killing a gangster. It was just unfortunate for me that I was dressed in such a way that no one could tell what age I was, so everyone just assumed I was a member of a rather short race, which there were plenty of on Coruscant.

I digressed.

Yes, twelve knights and one master.

Fuck!

* * *

"You."

I froze mid-walk and turned towards the voice.

I'd have been returning from a grocery run, using the money I looted from gangsters, as part of my "leave Coruscant" preparation.

Unfortunately, I knew that my plan was a toast when I saw that the person who'd called out to me was wearing that tacky brown robe.

"H-hello, Mr. Jedi?" I asked. The robed and hooded figure standing in the nearly empty street with me pulled the hood back, revealing a female Twi'lek. "Or Ms. Jedi," I corrected quietly.

"Are you not scared, little one?" she asked me with a frown. "There is a dangerous criminal out."

"I know," I replied innocently. "But I need to eat."

She frowned. "Do you not live with your parents?"

I shrugged as I clutched my groceries (read: groceries and tinker materials) tighter. "No. Never knew them." I paused before speaking again. "I have to go." Then I quickly ran away, leaving behind a Jedi who probably wanted some clue regarding the "killer of 1402."

Considering that I was the said killer, it was good for me to leave quickly before they used their own Force tricks on me.

I made my way through the alleys, looking over my shoulder for the Jedi and others like her.

As I scrambled to my hideout while leaving behind multiple false trails, I felt my heart beat in my ears. I was honestly scared.

The Jedi weren't the most understanding of folks. They were dogmatic, oppressive, and violent religious order.

Oh, I was religious myself, but the Jedi forced their view upon the entire galaxy for thousands of years. Their view which included but was not limited to killing anyone who disrupted their peace.

Was I any better?

No.

But it was my life, and the Jedi were here to kill me.

It was war.

I stopped no less than a block from my hideout. I scanned the corners and buildings, spotting no one.

Assured that I was not followed, I dove into a small hole in the side of a building, climbed over pipes, and landed in a pile of squishy flesh. The green and yellow tentacles and flesh beneath me writhed a little before gently wrapping around my waist.

"No, no, we don't have the time for that," I said as I slapped the tentacle twice. The tentacle released me and I rushed towards the spawning pool. I passed by glass tubes where I experimented on new strains, I passed by rooms filled with digested biomass, and I passed by rooms where nine xenines were playing poker.

I arrived at the chamber with the spawning pool, and I stared into its green liquid.

Without much thought, I pushed my hands into the pool. I brought up both Panacea and Blasto to life in my mind. Blasto made the blueprints for the monster I needed to fight against the Jedi. Panacea made it.

I didn't care for the anomalous effects, just make yourself already!

I don't want to die!

The green pool churned as the monster formed under my command. Something that could ignore the Force directed at it. Something that could cause fear to drive people away. Something that will laugh at the bite of the light sabers.

I panted as exertion began to set in from using two powers at once in such an inefficient manner. There's a reason animals had organs, why cells have organelles, and why biochemical reactions were easier with catalysts! I was doing the cellular equivalent of brute forcing a reaction through by pumping vast amounts of energy to make up for the lack of speed. The rough blueprint didn't help. I didn't even use any base form to build this monster from, only vague ideas.

But I was in a hurry, I was scared, and I was determined to push out the invaders from my haven.

'Jedis could be converging on my hideout right this moment,' I reasoned even as sweat began to drip from my nose and the room felt like an oven. I gritted my teeth as my head pounded from processing so much information so fast without releasing the heat of such an overloaded work.

The form flowered. The mind flowed. A bond formed.

My latest creation opened its eyes. Its snout pushed against my hands, which was where it began to form. It began to rise out of the pool, lumberingly swimming up from the bottom of the pool to the surface. Its head was the first to breach the thick biomass pool. As the green liquid cascaded down its face in this dim room, its front hands lurched out and grabbed the edge of the pool, splashing more of the fluid.

On those two hands and arms, it heaved itself out of the pool.

Its head looked like a flower bulb, but it split open in five ways, showing many rows of teeth on each petal-lip. Its neck and body was a fusion of plant and animal; there were thick barks growing out where there were little joints, but even the joint themselves were reinforced with shiny fibers that twisted like muscles did human arms. What parts of its neck, torso, shoulders, and arms that weren't covered in plant was packed with muscles meant for fighting and hurting. Its fingers were clawed and the back of its hand was spiky.

As it pulled itself out of the pool, I saw the rest of the body.

If the neck and torso was mammalian, then the abdomen and the rest of the body was reptilian with a tail to boot. The abdomen in particular was covered in scales while its back was spiked all the way down to the tip of the tail. There were two legs, and with how they were spread out, they could support the body easily. And standing up on its four legs and its torso and head held up high, it was four times as tall as I was.

Moments later, this very monster I created crooned as it wrapped itself around me, and I patted it.

"Go protect me," I said even as I caressed the ridge where the scales began to grow between its torso and abdomen. "Go kill the Jedis that came to kill me."

It hissed in acknowledgement and slithered off of me.

"Take your older brothers and sisters with you," I said. "They will help you."

It growled as it slid down the hallway, growling and screeching as it passed by rooms.

Xenines poured out of each room by the dozens where they have been resting, waiting for my order. As the King slithered out of my hideout, they followed it in a swarm.

I didn't wait there by the pool side. As exhausted as I was, I couldn't just depend on one plan to pull me out of this situation I found myself in.

I stumbled towards the labs.

I needed more.

More and more and more and more…

* * *

Interlude:

Jedi Master Akana (Twi'Lek)

Trying to find clues about the Massacre of 1402 was like trying to pull a ten minute meditation out of a youngling. She and the twelve knights with her had come down at the request of the Galactic Senate who could not allow the deaths of a thousand people go unanswered, but it was like trying to chase ghosts.

Who caused it?

Why did it happen?

How did it happen?

What was the mysterious mist?

And more importantly, where were the perpetrators?

The Coruscant Underlevels were one of the most densely populated locations in all of the galaxy. While there were no confirmation, it was said that for every person that lived on the surface, there were more than a hundred in the underlevels.

Akana thought it had to be closer to fifty than one hundred, but the point remained. With that many people, how did no one see the perpetrators fleeing, never mind even a detail regarding the perpetrators?

Though she didn't like it, she split the group into three teams, five Jedi per team with her attached to one of the teams. This way, no one would recklessly act without the others to hold them back and the perpetrator wouldn't jump on the chance of being subdued by others even if they managed to take one Jedi out.

Nothing found since they came here two days ago.

And then she found a child. She didn't notice it until she saw him with her own eyes, but there was a presence to him that was unlike the Force. It clung to him like a blanket of power.

"Hello."

That blanket which looked so comfortable and quiet immediately vibrated, trembling along the edge of the silhouette.

The child, she immediately recognized, was dangerous. The un-Force (she wasn't good with names) "laid" its eyes on her, and she could feel it want something from her. She decided that disengaging from the child and watching him from afar was for the best.

It turned out to be a mistake. She lost him.

"You think he's a lead?" one of the Jedi Knights asked after she told them of the child.

"Yes," Akana frowned. "I just … don't know how to describe it. It wasn't like the Force. It wasn't something that was in the background like the Force but something that wrapped itself around …" she cut off before something rumbled around them.

BAM!

The nearest sewer entrance burst open from the ground, sending the metallic hole cover flying high into the air. From the manhole, dog-like green creatures rushed out, opening their jaws to reveal more jaws within.

The monsters, because what else could they be in their unnatural appearances, came crawling out of the ground in the middle of the street and then racing straight towards her and her team. She immediately noticed how the creatures were all covered in the same ethereal un-Force as the child.

Akana threw herself into a roll to the side to dodge an attack.

'The child and these creatures are definitely related!' she thought to herself as she brandished her lightsaber. With a swirl and a flicker, she bisected the dog-like creature that had just lunged at her. Green blood spilled everywhere and the smell of ozone was strong.

"Alert the others!" she shouted. "Report to the temple! There is a -!"

Before she could finish her sentence, something far bigger burst out of the ground from where the manhole was.

At first, the dust and the flying metal shrapnels prevented Akana from seeing the monster, but as everything cleared, the bigger creature's monstrous chimeric nature was revealed. Its head looked like a flower, its body humanoid, and its leg reptilian. Unnatural protrusions of claws, barks, scales and spikes covered the creature's every surface.

Then it roared. Multiple windows shattered and glass shards flew everywhere. Her eardrums ruptured and she staggered on the spot.

Stunned, in pain, and yet still in control of herself, Jedi Master Akana looked up at the monster turning towards her and her team and grimaced.


End file.
